Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

[Patrick Duffy]

Just out of curiousity ... how do you guys plan on viewing the information recceived from the "fish"?


I have both a Lowrance Mach 1 and X-16 for this purpose. Dan Fountain used a Mach 1. They both have 4" paper and also power the "fish".


I believe that Sture's fish was powered from within.


Patrick

[Jan]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

Patrick,


My boss doesn't know it yet, but I am going to use the IBM Thinkpad he gave me for my work.


Might be difficult to explain why it got all that seawater in it but I will think of something.


Depending on how much output I want to store I will have a kind of wraparound file containing the last 30 minutes.


But have to see later, first the scanner itself.


Regards,


Jan

[bob]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

Jan,


A couple of things..


Could you tell me where you go the lens program, or where I can get a hold of it? Perhaps we can figure it out together.


I like your idea about asking universities. I am about 3 hours away by car from Penn State University, which has an Acoustics Research Department. I will send them an email, and see if they respond.


-Bob

[jan]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

Bob,


The webpage is


http://www.fink.com/acoustic_imaging/thin_lens.html


There is a whole book etc,


Do not know if the program can be downloaded,


Have to look more into it.


Perhaps we might ask the professor if he could run his program for us.


Shows some nice sonar pictures.


Regards,


Jan

[Terry]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

Has anyone made contact with the person who built this system. He might swing with letting us use his software, or electronics schematics.

[Jan]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

I don't think anyone tried yet.


Perhaps you could drop him a line.


Who knows, perhaps he is interested.


Regards Jan.

[Patrick Duffy]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

I assume you are referring to Sture. If so, I sent him an e-mail last night asking him if he would be willing to supply schematics, etc as well as participate on the list.


I also asked Dan Fountian to join.


Patrick

[Charles]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

Sture did make a very superb transducer which he shows sample images on his site as well as the transducer itself. The man knows what he's doing. I don't know what he has done lately, but when I corresponded with him about a year ago, as for the electronics, he was buying an off the shelf data aquisition board. He wrote his own software to sample the data, process it, and draw the images on an onboard computer. I have a laptop that I would use for this project. When I last traded emails with him, he was willing to let me have a copy of his software but only a compiled version, not the original source code. I believe his goal at that time (about a year ago) was to build a commercial unit and produce them so I'm not getting my hopes up that he'll help us a whole lot. I could be wrong and I hope I'm wrong but that was the impression I got. He had a couple of partners he was working with on his project. Only after he consulted with them, he said he would sell me one of his systems. I was going through some personal health issues at the time and never proceeded with further talks. I wish I could buy one of his systems now. The images he is producing are nothing less than spectacular. Like I said, he knows what he is doing.


Thanks,


Charles

[Patrick Duffy]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

Charles,


Did you guys ever discuss cost of his unit? If so, what did it include and for what price?


Patrick

[Charles]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

We did not discuss price. He was going to sell me the data aquisition card which is an off the shelf card we could buy ourselves. It was going to include the software Sture wrote (compiled version, not source code), also a Cirrus Logic VGA card because his code is written to work in DOS 6.2 with this video card only. I guess he talks directly to the CL chipset. And that was it. We did not talk price at all. He said they were casting some transducers at that time but did not mention anything more than that. I would be willing to buy this stuff from him if he would still be willing. I would have to make my fish out of PVC or something similar as I don't have access to the machine shop that he has. We traded these emails right at a year ago, mid July 98. I will try to see if I can find the details of the DAQ board and find the source and cost. He did send me a schematic of the EG&G board but that was very old stuff. I am sure that he uses the new DAQ board instead because its probably quieter and more versatile, maybe faster and higher resolution. I'll let you know if I can get more details on the board he is using. I certainly would like to buy his software and transducers if the cost isn't too far out of reach. The only negative thing would be that his software is tied to the CL chipset and would make it difficult or impossible to use my laptop as the on board PC. That would just mean that I'd have to bring a desktop on my boat I guess.


Thanks,


Charles

[bob]

Re: Paper Charts, LCDs, and Laptops

He has a very interesting site!


I noticed in his simulations where he pretended to have a degraded signal, changing the azmuth resolution had a much bigger effect on image quality than degrading the range information.


I guess that shows (sorry to sound like a broken record) that we need a good horizontal beam!


-Bob